


This Dark March

by cosmic_medusa



Series: We Three Kings [22]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Injury, Child Abuse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Teen Dean Winchester, Teen Sam Winchester, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27911353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_medusa/pseuds/cosmic_medusa
Summary: Sam talks Dean into letting him go straight home from school. It's a mistake neither will make twice.
Series: We Three Kings [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1306616
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	This Dark March

_Maybe we are a long way from being made in God’s image, but Stella—my sister—there has been_   
_some progress since then! There are such things as art, as poetry, as music. In some kinds of people,  
some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning, that have we have to make grow, and cling to,  
and hold as our flag in this dark march toward whatever it is we’re approaching...  
don’t, don’t hang back with the brutes!_

\--A Streetcar Named Desire

*

Jim's heart racketed up when he heard what sounded like someone trying to kick in his door.

"Jim!" someone shouted. He was already halfway to the front of the rectory. "Pastor Jim!" He knew that voice--and it was never good when it yelled.

The Winchester boys stood on the stoop. Rather, Dean stood on the stoop, Sam in his arms, scrawny legs hanging over his brother's right arm while Dean's left held his waist. The younger Winchester had blood caked to his hairline, his chest, his legs. He had his face pressed into Dean's neck, whimpering.

"He got him," Dean gasped. "Jim, please. He needs stitches."

"Where is it the worst?" Jim asked, holding the door open as Dean carried his brother through.

"I think he's got a concussion, but he got his damn side on something and he's been bleeding awhile." Sam's head lolled weakly against Dean's shoulder.

"Dean," he said, but it sounded more like a sob.

"I know," Dean murmured, "I gotcha, it's okay. Hang on a little longer, baby."

"Table," Jim said. "Dean, you know how I feel about this. A hospital--"

"A hospital wouldn't admit him without parental or guardian consent because he's thirteen fuckin' years old, Jim!" Dean roared. Sam whimpered against him. "And if I take him in there I'll have the state all over my ass and we'll be in foster homes by the end of the week. If you don't want to help us, fine, but you spare me the godddamn lecture!"

Sam was crying. Based on the look of his face and the tracks on his cheeks, he'd been doing it off and on.

"I'm okay, Dean," he managed. "I don't...I don't need a hospital."

"Shhh," Dean soothed. "It's alright, buddy, you're alright. Nothing bad's gonna happen."

"I didn't...mean..."

"Goddamnit, Jim, _please_ ," Dean begged, unzipping his brother's hoodie. "It's alright, you're alright, kiddo. Easy does it," he helped Sam lay back, eyes turning accusingly on the Pastor.

"You're gonna have to hold him," Jim said. Dean nodded, nearly throwing himself onto the table and engulfing Sam in his arms.

"Here we go, buddy," he whispered. "You're gonna feel better in a bit, alright?"

"Didn't...mean..." Sam mumbled, head rolling almost drunkenly.

"Shh, you didn't do anything," Dean gripped his brother a little tightly as Jim slowly cut away the boy's shirt to reveal a gash in his side, bleeding freely and deeper than Jim had expected.

"Any idea what he got him with?" he asked.

"He's been out of it, Jim."

"W--w--was t--t--tuna--can," Sam managed. "The--lid. I--I--la--landed--on--it. He--" he shook again, jerking slightly.

"Easy, easy," Dean murmured. "Don't worry, we got it from here."

"Dean, he landed on--"

"I'm not losing him!" Dean barked, drawing him close.

"I'm not the threat here. There's half a dozen infections—"

"Stitch him, Jim. If there's an infection I will bust into whatever hospital or pharmacy I have to to fix it. But there is no way I'm losing my brother over this."

"M--m--m'sorry, Dean," Sam managed. "I--I hit and--p--p--pulled it--out--"

"You didn't do anything bad, Sammy, not anything, promise," Dean soothed, stroking his brother's hair. "Did he knock over the trash? Is that what you landed on?"

Sam shook his head. "Was--on--counter. Wanted a--sandwich. I--" Sam hissed as Jim began swabbing the area around stitches. "Said--smell made--him--sick."

Jim swallowed and found some old Percocet in the kit. “Take these,” he said, handing them to Dean, he coaxed them down his brother’s throat. “I’m going to go as fast as I can, Sam. You hang tough.”

"Dean--hurts," Sam sobbed.

"I know, I know," he pressed his brother’s forehead against his own. "It's okay, kiddo. It's all gonna be okay," he whispered.

Jim sterilized the needle he hadn’t touched since a tour in the Peace Corps, long before he’d become a Pastor. Sam was whimpering and clutching his elder brother’s t-shirt while Dean stroked his head and murmured to him.

Sam bucked into Dean when Jim pulled the first stitch. Dean forced his brother’s arms to his sides, gritted his jaw, and spoke with an authority well beyond his years.

“Hold still,” he commanded. “You’re fine, kid. You’re going to be fine.”

And Sam did; he held himself as steady as possible, fist still in his brother’s shirt, head buried in his chest. They were so in tune, so trusting, these two boys: their love and devotion couldn’t be called into question. No matter how desperately Jim wanted them to find safety outside each other, he knew what it felt like to think you’ll die if you lost someone, so crippling would be the grief.

But he also knew that grief couldn’t kill you. Sure it could bring pain to your stomach and your head and your chest, and it could drag the spirit down into darkness, but it couldn’t kill. Vice killed: the liquor and drugs and sex and violence and all the other human things people did to hide from their feelings. He’d done his fair share of charging into the front, over-indulging in booze, and sobbing in bar bathrooms after his own brother’s death.

But neither Sam nor Dean had to die. Jim could get them to places where they’d be safe—and it was true, they wouldn’t be able to be together as often as they were now, but they could still be close. Nothing could break these two: that much was clear. And if it wasn’t clear, all they had to do was take a glance at them now, Dean holding his brother while Jim stitched his flesh together, Sam jerking and whimpering in pain but striving to hold himself still to obey his brother.

“Almost there,” Dean soothed, stroking Sam’s head while his brother whimpered and sobbed, and Jim forced aside memories of crying and hellish heat and David at his bedside. “I know, I know it hurts, baby. We’re almost there.”

"Done," Jim said. Sam's eyes rolled a bit, and his sobs were shaky and weak. Dean held his brother close, murmuring to him, only words like "hon," and "kid," and "alright," filtering through.

Dean gathered his brother up into his arms and carried him down the hall to the room for visiting Priests. Jim pulled back the starched sheets and Dean laid his brother on the mattress, fussed with the pillows and the blankets and sat next to him, talking softly. Jim retreated to grab a glass of ice water, and Dean got Sam to drink a good half before the kid sagged back against the pillows and whimpered, eyes falling shut.

“You did great, buddy,” Dean murmured, stroking Sam’s hair. “Everything’s all right.”

“Dean,” Sam mumbled.

“I gotcha.”

“Dean,” Sam sighed, relief in his voice and body as he drifted off to sleep.

“He needs fluids,” Jim said firmly. “Antibodies. A doctor—”

“If you know one who will keep his mouth shut, call him. If you don’t, shut the fuck up, Jim. I mean it.”

Jim followed the boy out of the room. He’d tried turning the other cheek: it was time to uproot the temple tables. “You’re being selfish.”

“Come again?” Dean snapped.

“You’re not doing this for Sam. If you wanted what was best for him, you would, at least, _consider_ an option other than this lying, deceitful, DIY lifestyle, Dean. It’s not good for him and it’s not good for _you_.”

Dean whirled around. “I am two seconds from knocking you flat on your sanctimonious ass.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, son,” Jim softened his voice.

“I am _not_ your son!” Dean bellowed. “And neither is Sam! You offered to help us out, long ago, and you broke up our family. I only let you back near us because you swore your damn silence. If you can’t keep that, then I will get my brother out of that bed and you won’t hear from us again. Understand?”

Above them, Sam let out a choking cough and called “Dean!” the elder Winchester swore at the Priest and pounded up the steps passed him.

“Soon as I get him back to sleep I’m going on a supply run. You want us gone or not?”

Jim shook his head. Dean rolled his eyes, whirled around, and entered his brother’s room, calling “hey bud, it’s alright,” with such tenderness it seemed almost impossible he was the same kid who’d been bellowing seconds earlier. Jim went downstairs, cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, washed his hands and the counters, and gathered additional pain killers and a cool cloth for the fever he knew was inevitable.

Dean came back in the kitchen and cleaned the blood off his own hands. “Keep an eye on him until I get back,” he said.

“Where are you going?”

“I told you.”

“Where are these ‘supplies’ coming from?”

Dean ignored him. “Try and get some water into him. And if he starts kicking or crying, talk to him, but don’t bring him out of it. Try and keep him under until I get back.”

“Dean—”

“Do you want us gone or not?”

Jim leaned forward and stared hard into Dean’s eyes. “I’m trying to help you. And your brother. That’s all I want, honestly, Dean. I will work to keep you together, or at least keep you close by.”

“I’m going to turn eighteen in a few months. You can find a family willing to shelter me then?” Dean snorted.

“I will help find a family who will welcome you visiting with Sam.”

“Sam is _my_ responsibility. Not some stranger’s. And _not_ yours. Now. Do you. Want us. Gone.”

“Sometimes the greatest, most loving sacrifice you can make, is letting go.”

Dean pulled out his car keys. “Hold me, Jimbo. That was beautiful,” he said, and slammed the door on his way out.

***

Within an hour, Jim’s worse fears are confirmed.

Sam’s temparture spikes, his face flushes, he kicks and cries in his sleep. Jim changes the dressing and notices hellish little red lines coming out from the stitches, recognizes the smell of rot and decay, feels the room sway briefly and banishes David back to the jungle. He wipes Sam’s face with a cold cloth, strokes his hair as he’d seen his brother do, and talks to him softly. He prays: silently, fervently, promising to fast and tithe and do all he could if God would just get this boy through the night.

Dean arrives—and Jim doesn’t even ask how he got in without hearing him—in a whirlwind of gauze, an IV bag, and pills. He bends a coat hanger into a hook-up for the IV, crushes the pills and forces the powder into his brother’s throat, cleans the wound with alcohol and cream, and, finally, pulls his brother half into his lap to hold him steady while he plunges the needle into his vein and delivers life-saving antibodies and fluids directly into his brother’s blood.

“There you go,” Dean whispers, stroking Sam’s hair. The boy cries weakly against him. “I know, bud. Give it a few minutes, and you’re gonna feel better.”

“Where did you get this?” Jim asked.

“Take the fifth,” Dean spat. Sam cried. Dean pressed him close, stroked his hair, and told him that everything was fine, just fine, and he was right there, and so nothing could hurt him, and nothing would.

.***

Jim stares into the refrigerator for a long time before giving in and bringing two cans of Coors up the stairs with him. Dean is slumped in a rocking chair next to his brother’s bed, eyes on the kid, whose temperature is dropping steadily toward normal. Jim offers the can to him. Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Going to make me go to confession afterward?”

“I say this to you out of love: you’re an asshole.”

Dean grinned and took the beer, taking a long, deep swallow as only someone who was used to drinking could. “Thanks,” he sighed, kicking off his shoes.

“I should have picked a better time to address my concerns,” the Pastor ventured.

“Yeah.” Dean rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry, I know I ran my mouth. Just... I was all adrenaline.”

Jim kept his eyes carefully on Sam, for Dean’s sake. “You’re a wonderful brother, Dean. _More_ than a brother—you’re an excellent caregiver. A _guardian_. I knew it from the night I first met you. I’m really not trying to challenge that.”

“But?” Dean prompted.

“There’s another way. For _both_ of you—”

“Leave our Dad.” Dean took a pull on his beer.

“Your Dad needs help.”

“And losing his kids...that’s going to fix him?”

“I would help all three of you. Find you programs. Find a home for Sam that wouldn’t remove him from you completely. Find—”

“See, when you say that to me, Jim, do you know what I hear?” Dean said, but there was no fury or rage in his voice, just sharp, direct honesty, “I hear, ‘I’m going to sever your limbs, but I’ll try and see if I can’t keep them attached a bit. You won’t be able to use or feel them, but they’ll be there for show.”

“Dean—”

“I don’t have anything else, Jim. They’re my job. They _need_ me.” Dean stared at his brother, face suddenly plunging into grief. “I know...in my head, that I should put Sam first. And I try, Jim, I do. But...my Dad needs me too. He talks to me, Jim...not just when he’s drinking. He leans on me. He needs me to look after Sam and the house. That’s how he’s able to go big stretches sober. I can take a smack or two for that.”

“But Sam—”

“It’s my fault he was hurt,” Dean interrupted. “Usually I make him come stay with me at the garage until I finish. But I let him go home from soccer because the stupid kid wanted a shower. It won’t happen again.”  
  
“I’ll vouch for you in court. I have connections, Dean. I bet Bobby and Ellen Singer would take you both in.”

“You’re not listening.”

“I understand that you love your father, but this—this is not okay.”

“I’m not saying it’s okay. But he’s our Dad, even when he sucks at it. You don’t just give up on someone you love when they hurt you.”

“I’m not saying give up. I’m saying, get away, get somewhere safe, and let him work on this one his own.”

Dean leaned forward and touched his brother’s arm. Sam sighed.

“I’m tired,” he said. It was the last words he’d speak that night.

  
***

Jim was on his way up the path to the rectory when he saw him: John Winchester. Hands shoved in his pockets, hair in his face, slouch of defeat—just like Sam. But when he looked up and spotted the Pastor, he shot upright, schooled his features, and nodded—pure Dean.

“John.”

“Jim.”

The Winchester patriarch looked just as he remembered: tired, a little sick, guarded, but with the soulful eyes of both his boys. Jim shifted the bag of groceries in his arms.

“What can I do for you?”

“They’re here, aren’t they?”

Jim sighed. “Let me put these in the kitchen. I’ll be right back out.”

For a second, he sees John ready to challenge him, but then he just gives up and sighed, like he didn’t expect to be welcomed. Jim takes care to lock the door behind him, sets the groceries on the counter, and asks Mrs. Delaney, the Parish housekeeper, to put the pie he’d prepped into the oven before she left.

“Let’s walk,” he said.

John rose and followed him, in the silent few moments, down the sidewalk, off past the entrance to the Sacristy, and into the empty prayer garden utilized only by himself and the few visiting clergy. John sank onto the lone bench and rubbed at his eyes in that tired, overwrought way Dean had.

“Don’t try and give me the ‘come to Jesus speech,’” John muttered.

“I wouldn’t. John, honestly, I know you love your boys. But this has got to stop. You _can not_ drink.”

John rubbed his hand over his face, much like Dean. “Which of them was it?”

“Sam.”

“Was it bad?”

“He needed stitches. Dean wouldn’t let me take him to a hospital.”

“I don’t remember anything,” he sighed.” I woke up in my truck. Went home...there was blood on the floor.” His breath hitched. “I got rid of all the booze left. And I went back to the center.”

“The Center” was the Rosemount Rehabilitation clinic, where Jim had referred him years earlier. John had refused impatient treatment and counseling, but he’d gone to a few of their AA meetings.

“You need to go through their in-patient program, John. I can watch the boys, or the Singers. We’ll support you.”

“I can do it...I have. I haven’t had that much in a long time.”

“We’ve been down this road.”

“Me and my boys live paycheck to paycheck. Dean had to drop out of school to help with the bills. I can’t just drop everything and go away to some hippie resort to ‘find myself.’”

“It’s not a resort, and it’s not for hippies. It’s a _medical_ center. Think of this as a cancer, or an operation. You need to dig in deep and flush out these feelings so you can understand how you respond, biologically and psychologically. It’s not an easy disease to manage.”

“I’ll manage.” John rose to his feet. “Can I see them?”

“Sam’s sleeping. He’s...he hasn’t been well.”

“Dean?”

“I’d give Dean another day or two if I were you.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “I appreciate what you’ve done for my children. But don’t try and take them from me.”

“Hand of God, I am not here to break up this family. I’m trying to _help_ you. The three of you. Before you take a step too far, and that’s the direction you’re headed in. You were overseas, just like me. You understand how quickly and easily life can be altered.”

“I’d never—I know things have gone too far in the past. But never like _that_.”

“You don’t _remember_ what you felt, or how far things went—”

“I’m their _father_. Whatever I did, it stopped me from going too far. And I always leave. I always get myself out to go cool off.”

Jim had to fight the very real urge to hit him. It was no use reasoning: he wasn’t speaking to John Winchester, the man, the father, the sick child: he was speaking to Denial, and there was no way around it. John hadn’t hit that magical turning point when he realized just how far out of control things were. No one could give him that: Jim knew enough about the disease to know the turning point came from within, or it never came at all.

“Could you give this to them?” he held out an envelope with a slightly shaky hand. _Sammy & Dean_ was scrawled in equally shaky writing on the front, and Jim knew it took a tremendous amount of humility to ask for this, to admit his weakness and need for his sons, and humility needed to be met with love and compassion, no matter the circumstances.

“Please come back under less distressing circumstances,” Jim said.

“Of course,” John answered, in that way that clearly meant _never_.

***

Jim and the boys ate together in Sam’s room. The youngest Winchester was paler than usual, but he managed a good half of his chicken pot pie, with minimal fuss from Dean. Jim waited until the elder Winchester had finished off his own piece of pie and most of his younger brother’s before he handed over the envelope from their father and filled them in on the conversation. Dean opened the letter, frowned, tossed it onto his brother’s lap, and announced that he was going to the Four Deuces for a pool tournament.

“Five-hundred buck final pot,” he mumbled, rubbing his brother’s head, then bending to kiss him roughly on the forehead before darting out the door. Sam watched him almost mournfully, than slowly read the letter himself, neatly folding it and placing it on the nightstand with a sigh.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jim asked.

“It’s the same as always,” the boy settled back on the pillows and pulled the covers up, wincing slightly as he did. “He’s sorry, he doesn’t remember what happened, he’s going to quit drinking, for good, it won’t happen again, he loves us.”

“If it means anything, I believe he’s sincere.”

“I know.” Sam reached toward the nightstand for his water glass. Jim handed it over quickly before he could over-reach and hurt himself. “You know, when he says that stuff to Dean, it makes me angry. But when he says it to me...it’s hard not to take seriously,” Sam admitted.

“Your Father is ill, Sam. But unlike many diseases, there is a surefire cure. It just takes tremendous willpower.”

“We’re not enough for him, Jim.” The boy looked up at him, eyes big and sad. “I used to think he hated us, but I don’t now. I think...he doesn’t remember hurting us. Maybe, if he did, that would change things.” He chuckled: suddenly, bitterly. “Or maybe I’m as bad as Dean. Telling myself he still loves us because it’s hard to think—” Sam’s voice broke.

  
“He loves you, Sam. You and Dean both. Very much. Addiction...love doesn’t factor in. Addicts lose jobs, homes, spouses, children—it’s only when they can recognize that there’s a greater force outside themselves, this _thing_ that’s taken them over, that they can ever let it go.”

“You drink,” Sam snapped. “I’ve seen you. But you talk and act like—”

“I’ve been there,” Jim interrupted. “When I lost my own brother—when I lost David.” Jim looked at his hand, rubbing them together anxiously. “I came back, and I was still hurt and sick, and I’d seen all that hell and he was gone...and I lost myself. I drank and I fought and I did all those things you can see on TV talk shows. I didn’t take care of myself, and I couldn’t take care of anyone else. My mother, my father, my friends. They tried to help me—they couldn’t. No one could. Not even God.”

He raised his eyes. Sam was watching him, looking so sad. Jim rested a hand on the boy’s arm. “And?” Sam prompted.

“One morning, I woke up, and I’d lost the necklace he’d given me. The one you gave Dean.” Sam’s eyes widened. “It took all day, but I finally found it hanging just inside a sewer grate on the street. It was a miracle it hadn’t fallen into the tunnel. And...I don’t know. It felt like...”

“Your brother was there,” Sam mumbled, looking away. “I know. That happens with Dean and me...sometimes.”

“It felt like David was there...and was pissed,” Jim agreed, and Sam laughed, wincing a little and pressing his side when he did. “Anyway...I didn’t drink for years after that. Anything. I sobered up and I got some counseling and I enlisted in the Peace Corps, and then I ‘took the cloth,’ as my mother would say. And now I enjoy an occasional drink or two, but...it doesn’t hold me like it used to. I’ve learned to cope in better ways.”

Sam looked down at the bedspread and rubbed a loose seam between his fingers. When he spoke again, it was so soft Jim had to lean forward to catch the words. “I was always scared my Dad would kill Dean. I don’t think he’d mean to—but these things happen and...” his fingers clenched into a fist. “But he won’t kill Dean. He _needs_ Dean. Dean takes care of him, and the bills, and the groceries, and the school...he can’t make it without Dean.”

“What are you saying?” Jim prompted.

“It’ll be me.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“It’ll be me,” Sam said, firmer, and with an authority far beyond his years. “He won’t mean to...and I’m sure he’ll be sorry. He’s always sorry.”

“Sam, your father—”

“He _needs_ Dean, but Dean puts me first. He always has. My Dad won’t stand it forever. Especially if I—” he broke off. “I want you do something for me.”

“You know I will, but—”

“If I ever—something ever _does_ happen—”

“Sam, I won’t let—”

“ _If_ something happens, I want you to—pray over me. The thing you do when someone’s dying.”

“Last rights?”

“Right. I’m not Catholic or anything but...please?”

“Listen to me, son. You can’t think—”

“ _Please_?” Sam brought his eyes up and locked in on his. It was clear that he was scared, and sad, and still a little out of it from the pain killers, but he was also deeply sincere. An old soul, his mother would say. A kind soul, a loving soul.

“I’ll do all I can to look out for you,” Jim promised. “You and your brother both.”

It sounded wrong. It sounded like the promises made before the men went out into the jungle. The empty reassurances his mother had sent halfway across the world. It sounded like what you were supposed to need to hear, and echoed all the louder in terrifying void when you realized it was nothing but a bundle of words, and your soul spoke another language entirely.

***

_Let him go._

Dean had helped himself to a few beers at the garage, indulged in a few more at a bar that didn’t card—and picked up a few extra bucks at the pool table as he went—and now was sitting by his brother’s bed, feeling sluggish and sick and trying to block out the memory of his brother curled up on the floor with blood leaking between his fingers.

_I’m sorry, Dean, I’m sorry—_

_Shh, I got this, let me look—_

It had been bad: Dean had known it before he pried his brother’s hand away and saw the gash. But he murmured and soothed and gathered the bony teen up in his arms and talked softly the whole way to the car, just as he had all those years ago when his Dad had thrust a crying baby Sammy into his arms and ordered him to flee the house while he tried, and failed, to save Mary Winchester from the fire an overtaxed electrical cord had ignited in their bedroom while John slept in front of the television.

_I don’t want to live away, Dean, please don’t let me live away—_

_I won’t let you go, Sammy, I promise. I’m not gonna let you go._

Dean was seventeen years old, drunk, and an unconvincted felon. He was a high school dropout with a GED and a job at a garage. He had a car that was barely chugging, a record that would be long if he was caught, a kid brother made of long boney arms and legs and sharp, unfatted ribs: a kid brother who, for some idiotic reason, loved him without question.

Without Sam? He was a thug. A dropout, a robber, a con-artist. He was a kid opening his front door to a dark house, even if his Dad _wasn’t_ drinking. He was destined to lose himself in the bottom of a bottle, in the dark of an alley. He was everything _but_ a man with the purpose he saw in himself: a man made for protecting his brother, for defending his family.

Watching his brother sleep, curled up, stitches in his side, bangs over his overly-hot forehead, he knew what he _should_ do: tell him to get lost. To go into a home with a functional parental unit. With books and school supplies and steady, hot, healthy meals.

But he couldn’t. God help him, he _couldn’t_. He loved this damn kid more than he loved anything or anyone. He’d give his insides, his life, his _soul_ , for him. Whatever anyone else saw, this stupid kid saw a hero, a guy who knew it all, who made sacrifices and could be more than he valued. _No one_ else saw that. At best, they thought he’d be a good worker on an assembly line: maybe, at best, a manger. No one else was wanting him to come home, bright-eyed and buoyant when he did. No one else wanted advice on homework and friends and girls. No one else sought him out for comfort and reassurance and praise.

Without Sam, his life was what the world thought _he_ was—nothing.

No friends.

No family.

No _home_.

All those things were in Sam. All those things _were_ Sam.

The gawky, gangly, geeky teen Dean had carried to this bed.

The chubby, cooing, cuddly baby Dean had kissed and snuggled and diapered and bathed.

The kid brother he loved more than _anything_.

Sam whimpered. His eyes cracked to slits and he rolled toward his brother.

“Dean?” he mumbled.

“M’right here,” Dean murmured, clumsily stroking his brother’s forehead. “I gotcha.”

Sam sighed, in the way only his kid brother could. Letting it all go. Letting it all go because his big brother had him. Because _Dean_ had him. Dean felt his throat swelling with tears. Sam looked up at him through heavy eyelids, frowned, and scooted back on the bed.

“Lay down?” he mumbled, in that saintly-Sammy way of asking for what _Dean_ needed, and granting the elder Winchester’s pride permission to stretch out and paw at his brother and reassure himself that the kid was here, and the kid would be here in the morning, and Dean was doing the right thing. Dean _needed_ to do the right thing...

“Dean,” Sam mumbled. “We can...we can stay with Dad. Until we’re...old enough. I won’t get in the way again.”

“You’re not in the way,” Dean slurred, aware that the room was spinning and his tongue was thick. “You’re not...Sammy. You’re...”

“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam murmured, clutching Dean’s shirt and pulling his arm across his chest, avoiding what would be a scar when it healed. “I know. We’ll be okay. You’ll watch out for us.”

“Shutup,” Dean pleaded, his hand falling clumsily, heavily, on his brother’s head. Sam grinned. “Shutup, Sammy. I—”

“I know,” Sam murmured, pulling his brother close. “You take good care of us, Dean. Please, don’t drink?”

Dean huffed, exhausted and drunk and hurting, into his brother. “Sammy.”

“Hm,” Sam sighed.

“Sammy.”

“Shhh,” Sam mumbled.  
  
"Sammy."  
  
"We're 'kay."

Dean wanted to go on, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything but hold his brother as tight as he could without hurting him, feeling the kid’s rising and falling chest, knowing they weren’t alone, feeling trust and love and loyalty and wishing and praying that it would carry them through, no matter how dark the march ahead, or how bleak the dawn.


End file.
